Neurons, mutations and gene expression

“We found that the genes that the brain uses most of all are the genes that are most fragile and most likely to be mutated.”

“We expected these mutations to look like cancer mutations,” Walsh says, explaining that cancer mutations tend to arise when DNA is imperfectly copied in preparation for cell division, “but in fact they have a unique signature all their own. The mutations that occur in the brain mostly seem to occur when the cells are expressing their genes.”